Six months in the gold mines

by E. Gould Buffum

After working three days with the machine, the earth we had been washing began to give out, and it became necessary for us to look for a new place: accordingly on the fourth morning, we commenced “prospecting.” Three of us started down, and three up the river. I sauntered on ahead of the party on the lower expedition until, about three hundred yards from camp, I found a pile of rocks that I thought afforded a reasonable “prospect.” I started down to the river bank, and seated myself at the foot of a vast rock to look around me. I observed above me, and running in a direct course down the rocky bank, a large crevice, which I carefully searched as high up as I could reach, but found only a very small quantity of gold. Being disappointed in this, I determined to trace the crevice to its outlet, confident that there a deposit of gold must have been made. I traced the crevice down nearly to the edge of the water, where it terminated in a large hole or pocket, on the face of a rock which was filled with closely packed gravel. With a knife and spoon I dug this out, and till when near the bottom of the pocket, I found the earth which I brought up in my spoon contained gold, and the last spoonful I took from the pocket was nearly pure gold in little lumpy pieces. I gathered up all the loose gold, when I reached the stony bottom of the pocket, which appeared to be of pure gold, but upon probing it, I found it to be only a thin covering which by its own weight and the pressure above it, had spread and attached itself to the rock. Crossing the river, I continued my search, and, after digging some time, struck upon a hard, reddish clay, a few feet from the surface. After two hours’ work, I succeeded in finding a “pocket” out of which I extracted three lumps of pure gold, and one small piece mixed with oxydized quartz. Elated with my good luck, I returned to camp, and weighing the gold, found the first lot amounted to twelve and a half ounces, or two hundred dollars, and the four lumps last found, to weigh sixteen and three quarter ounces. The largest pieces weighed no less than seven ounces troy. My success this day was, of course, entirely the result of accident; but another of the party had also found a pocket containing about two hundred and seventy dollars, and a place which promised a rich harvest for our machine.

The gold thus found in pockets and crevices upon the river banks, is washed from the hills above them. In searching for the course of the metal, I have found small quantities by digging on the hill-tops, and am fully persuaded that the gold is washed by the rains, until seeking, as it always does, a permanent bottom, it rests in any pocket or crevice that can prevent it from being washed further, or falls into a stream running at the base of the hills, to find a resting-place in its bed, or be again deposited on its banks. If this theory be true, the beds of the rivers whose banks contain gold must be very rich in the precious metal, and recent labours in damming and turning the courses of certain portions of them, have so proved. The richest deposits of gold upon the rivers are found on what are called the “bars.” These bars are places where there is an extension of the bank into the river, and round which the stream winds, leaving, of course, a greater amount of surface than there is upon the bank generally. They are covered with large rocks deeply imbedded in the soil, which upon most of them is a red gravel, extending to the solid formation of rock beneath.

There are two theories upon which the superior richness of the bars can be accounted for. The first is, that the river in its annual overflows has made the deposits of gold here, and that being more level and broad than the river’s banks, they retain a larger quantity of the gold thus deposited. The other, and the only one that accounts for the formation of the bars themselves, is, that where they now are, the river formerly ran; and that they were once the river’s bed, but that from some natural cause, the channel has been changed and a new one made; and thus, are left dry, these large portions of the river’s bed which annually receive fresh deposits of gold from it in its overflow.

We were all ready to commence operations on our new place in the morning, when, on waking, we found the sky hazy, and soon after breakfast a severe rain set in. We crept into our holes and remained there through the day, hoping for a cessation of the rain before the morning, but it continued pouring in torrents. Never have I seen rain come down as it did then and there; not only the “windows” but the very floodgates “of heaven” seemed opened upon us, and through that doleful night we lay upon our blanketed rocks, listening to the solemn music of the swollen river rushing rapidly by us, and the big rain torrents pouring upon its breast. In the morning we found that the river had risen four feet, and observing, high above our camp, the marks of the height to which it had attained during previous seasons, we judged it prudent to be looking for higher quarters. The rain continued raising the river through the second and third days, nearly three feet more, until it nearly reached our rock-couches. We talked the matter over, and determined to leave the next day, and return to our winter quarters on Weaver’s Creek. We felt, of course, a profound sorrow at leaving our rich spot, after having satisfied ourselves that a few months’ labour in it would make us all wealthy men,—after having succeeded, with great labour, in transporting to it two or three months’ provisions, and having suffered so much by resting (if resting it could be called) our labour-wearied bones upon rocks of the most unaccommodating and inelastic character. But the dreaded rainy season we knew had commenced, and rosy health was better than the brightest gold, so we stowed away our provisions with the exception of what we supposed would be requisite for our journey homeward, and on the fourth morning after the rain commenced, took our line of march up the formidable hill.

CHAPTER VI.

Mormon Exploration of the Middle Fork—Headquarters of the Gold-hunters—The North Fork—Smith’s Bar—Damming—Great Luck of a Frenchman and his Son—Kelsey’s Bar—Rise and Fall of the Rivers—Return to Weaver’s Creek—Agricultural Prospects—Culoma Sawmill—An Extensive and Expensive Breakfast—“Prospecting” on the South Fork—Winter Quarters—Snow-storm—A Robbery—Summary Justice—Garcia, Bissi, and Manuel—Lynch Law—Trial for attempt to Murder—Execution of the Accused—Fine Weather—How the Gold became distributed—Volcanic Craters.

The banks of the Middle Fork have proved richer than those of any other tributary of the Sacramento River. The fork is the central one of three streams, which rise in the Sierra Nevada, and course their way to the American Fork, a large branch of the Sacramento, into which they empty. The first exploration of the Middle Fork was made in the latter part of June, 1848, by a party of Mormons who had been at work upon the South Fork, and had left them for the hills in search of richer deposits than were found there. The first diggings were made at the Spanish Bar, which is about twelve miles in a direct line from Sutter’s Mill, and has yielded at least a million of dollars. The Middle Fork has now been explored to its very source in the Sierra, but has not been found so rich above as it was below. Since my first trip there, I have travelled for thirty miles on both its banks, and never yet washed a pan of its earth without finding gold in it. When the immense tide of emigration began to pour in from the United States, the Middle Fork was the grand headquarters of the enthusiastic gold-hunters, and its banks have been torn to their very bottoms, and incalculable treasures taken from them. Within the past summer and fall, at least ten thousand people have been at work upon this river, and at the fair average of one ounce, or even ten dollars per day to a man, more than ten millions of dollars worth of gold dust have been extracted on this river alone. Its banks having ceased to furnish a very large amount of gold, the river itself has in many places been diverted from its wonted course, a channel dug for it through a bar, and its bed wrought,—in many cases yielding an immense quantity of the precious metal, and in others, comparatively nothing. This is now about the only profitable labour that can be performed here, as the banks of the stream have been completely riddled; but when companies with capital and scientific mining apparatus shall commence operations here, a rich harvest will follow.

About ten miles beyond the Middle Fork, and coursing in the same direction, is another stream, the North Fork, whose banks have proved nearly equal in richness to those of the Middle Fork. Within the past spring and summer some fifteen points on this river have been dammed, the channel turned, and the bed of the river dug. In one case, a party of five dammed the river near what is now called “Smith’s Bar.” The time employed in damming off a space of some thirty feet was about two weeks, after which from one to two thousand dollars a day were taken out by the party, for the space of ten days,—the whole amount of gold extracted being fifteen thousand dollars. Another party above them made another dam, and in one week took out five thousand dollars. In other cases, where unfavourable points in the river were selected, little or no gold was found; and a fair average of the amount taken out, in parts of the river which were dammed, I think I can safely state at fifty dollars per day to a man.

Here is an immense field for a combination of capital and labour. As yet no scientific apparatus has been introduced, and severe manual labour alone has produced such golden results. When steam and money are united for the purpose, I doubt not that the whole waters of the North and Middle Forks will be turned from their channels, and immense canals dug through the rugged mountains to bear them off. There are placers upon the Middle Fork, where, within a space of twenty square feet, are lying undisturbed pounds of gold. This may appear startling; but facts and experience have led me to an analogical mode of reasoning, which has proved it to my own mind conclusively. A Frenchman and his boy, who were working on the Middle Fork in November, 1848, found a place in the river where they could scrape from the bottom the sands which had gathered in the crevices and pockets of the rocks. These were washed in a machine, and in four days’ time the father and son had taken from the river’s bed three thousand dollars, and this with nothing but a hoe and spade. Two men on Kelsey’s Bar, on the Middle Fork, adopted the same process, and in two days washed from the earth, thus procured, fifty pounds of gold, amounting to nearly ten thousand dollars. The great difficulty in the way of labouring in this manner is, that there are very few places where the water is sufficiently shallow to permit it, and the river bed is so rocky, and the current so strong, that it is only in places where it becomes a pool of still water that the soil can be taken from its bottom.

The width of the Middle Fork is in most places about thirty feet, and that of the North a little less. The current of both rivers is very strong, being at the rate of five or six miles an hour. The beds of these rivers are composed of huge rocks, tumbled together as they are upon the banks; and it is in the crevices and pockets of these rocks that the gold has secreted itself. Where the stream is narrow and the current strong, the probability is that there is but little gold; but where it expands, and the water becomes more quiet, the gold has settled peacefully, there to remain till the hand of some irreverent Yankee shall remove it from its hiding-place.